It may look pretty, and it may act tough, but Gangster Squad is as dumb as they come.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 3, 2024

What a shame that such a talented cast of actors, not to mention the attractive costumes and gorgeous production design, go to waste on this all-too-familiar story.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 20, 2022

[A] depressingly by-the-numbers script.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 30, 2021

Penn wants to be De Niro and Pacino simultaneously, but instead emerges ridiculous, forgetting his accent and tripping over his unnatural, obligatory mercilessness.

| Original Score: 4/10 | Dec 3, 2020

It's hard not to be disappointed with a film that possesses so much talent that leads to such a trivial result.

| Original Score: 2.0/4.0 | Sep 8, 2020

You can't help but wish there was something, anything beyond the surface.

| Original Score: C- | Jul 19, 2020

Messy, lacklustre and disappointing, the only saving grace of Gangster Squad is the quality of its cast.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 9, 2019

Gangster Squad is a generic name, which is fitting, because Gangster Squad is a generic movie.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 18, 2018

This is an exceptionally well-acted and--for the most part--entertaining film.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Nov 6, 2018

The dialogue is just bad.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 26, 2018

A plodding, limp and try-hard attempt at injecting some 21st century influences into what would've been more effective as a classic, simple noir.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 13, 2018

Gangster Squad is a stylish, tension-filled watch but, for all its brutal violence and determined men, it lacks the depth of character to make it truly memorable.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 11, 2017

It's a lazy, watered down gangster flick that is not nearly as clever or as new as it attempts to be.

| Original Score: D+ | Sep 7, 2017

Gangster Squad is slight pulp fiction that offers all-out, balls-to-the-wall action riddled with as many clichés as bullets.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 1, 2017

Those who are calling it shallow and cartoony and clichéd are missing the point. It is all of those things, purposefully - gleefully, even.

| Jun 21, 2016

Visually? Sure, it's impressive. But on all other fronts it leaves nothing but a couple muddy footprints and a signpost of misplaced potential.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 12, 2016

Okay, so maybe nobody expected Gangster Squad to be in the league of, say, Chinatown or L.A. Confidential, but even on the level of pure, bullet-spattered fun, this thing is so vaporous that it slides out of memory even while you're watching it.

| Aug 5, 2015

Gosling's smirk conveys a contempt for the material rivaled only by my own.

Full Review | Apr 28, 2015

Probably the year's most squandered cast, in a boring, by-the-numbers crime film that plays like a fifth-generation re-do of "L.A. Confidential,"

| Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 26, 2013

A nod toward nostalgia, a grandiose display of the arrogance of the present: this seems to be the whole program of Gangster Squad.

| Nov 4, 2013